Street roots., October 06, 2017, Page 8, Image 8

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News
Street Roots • October 6-12, 2017
News
S treet Roots • October 6-12, 2017
Page 9
Finding beauty beneath human tragedy
Gallery 114 in the Pearl District showcases
homelessness and the Syrian refugee crisis
BY EMILY GREEN
homeless youths, and has donated some of
STAFF WRITER
her paintings to Central City Concern’s
Healing Through Art Collection. It’s a
rtist Mary Jo Mann was looking
collection of nearly 100 original pieces of
around her neighborhood in
fine art from Pacific Northwest artists that
Southeast Portland for inspiration
during the spring and summer of 2016. decorate the nonprofit’s housing and
homeless service facilities across the metro
She’d walk up and down alleyways in Ladd’s
area.
Addition and ride her bike along the
In October, Mann’s “Un-Becoming” will
Springwater Corridor toward Sellwood.
be
showcased at Gallery 114 in the Pearl
She began to notice weeds growing out of
District. The gallery is a cooperative owned
cracks in the sidewalk and the crevices of
and operated by 11 artists who take turns
buildings - places where ornamental garden
exhibiting.
species were unlikely to survive.
Mann has invited Horatio Law, a
“It was interesting because some of these
professional artist and Pacific Northwest
weeds, they didn’t need a lot. They managed
College of Art faculty member, to exhibit
to find their way in very difficult kinds of
alongside her.
places and do OK,” she said.
Law specializes in public art pieces and
She realized that despite their categorical
using unconventional materials to create his
ostracism, these weeds were dazzling in
often large-scale, three-dimensional works.
their own manner.
He will feature two series he described as
She began to collect specimens, clipping
“two sides of the same coin.”
the weeds, and sometimes pulling them out
“Burnt Offerings” features a grid of 25
by their roots, to take back to her home
faces of Syrian refugee children, taken from
studio so she could paint their likenesses
photographs Law found on the internet.
with ink and fluid acrylic.
A lightly charred origami butterfly
As she sought out these little garden
accompanies each child.
invaders for inspiration, she also happened
The idea came to Law, in part, from an
through homeless encampments and passed
artist residency in Sisters near the foothills
by people sleeping in doorways and under
of the Cascade Mountains. The surrounding
overpasses.
forest had been ravaged by wildfire several
“At some point, I began seeing a
years earlier and was in recovery.
connection between the weeds and the
“It was an inspiration to see the force of
homeless,” Mann writes in her artist
nature and also how living organisms
statement. “The fact they somehow
endured this fire, and they sprung back, and
survived though living on the outside with
all things recover after the fire,” he said.
minimal nourishment, in places that aren’t
The project is also personal. Both of
conducive to surviving. As with weeds, our
Law’s parents were Chinese refugees who
homeless neighbors are often rejected and
fled the Japanese during World War II,
seen as unsavory and unwanted. I came to
landing in Hong Kong, where Law was born.
realize that as Ella Wheeler Wilcox stated in
He remembers his parents talking about the
her poem ‘The Weed,’ ‘A weed is but an
hardships of fleeing, of being in an
unloved flower!’ Unlike weeds, I came to
occupation and of trying to escape.
see that living on the outside takes a toll on
“A lot of them look very cute, and
fellow humans.”
photogenic,” he said of his young Syrian
She began to take photographs of the
subjects. “But we don’t know what they
camps, while chatting with their inhabitants. suffered through and what kind of internal
Eventually, she worked abstract
damage they have.”
representations of the tent cities into her
Law balances the tragedy he’s displayed
series on weeds, now titled “Un-Becoming.”
with “Stargazers.” This, too, features
While Mann earned a bachelor’s degree
photographs of Syrian children, but this
in fine arts from Seattle University, she
time he has overlaid their faces with
spent her career working as a software
constellations, such as Pleiades and Orion,
developer at Standard Insurance in the
drawn with plastic gemstones.
heart of downtown Portland. She was
He imagines that as the children are
accustomed to seeing people who lived on
fleeing with their families in the night,
the city’s streets as she went to and from
traveling over desert and over sea, they
work on a daily basis. She noticed, however,
have hopes and aspirations about the new
that the homeless population seemed to
place they will call home. When they look
“mushroom” over the past five to six years,
up, they see the constellations twinkling in
she said.
the sky.
Now retired, she is focusing on
“Children experience the same thing as
developing her artistic abilities but has also
adults in terms of the hardship, but they
tried to understand issues around
have an imaginary world to them,” he said.
homelessness. She volunteered her services This part of his series, he added, “is about
at p:ear, a drop-in center and art studio for
imagination, about hope, about dreams.”
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Un-Becoming
M ary Jo M a n n ’s
latest collection,
“Un-Becoming, ”
explores the
connection between
different societal
outcasts, weeds and
people experiencing
homelessness,
fin d in g beauty in
their shared
survival.
Horatio L a w ’s
“Stargazer” collection
features the faces of
Syrian refugee children
overlaid with gemstones
in the shapes o f
constellations. He
imagines the children
look to the sky as they
flee a t night over land
and sea, fu ll o f hope and
expectations.
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If you g o
What: ;
“Un-Becoming,”
“Burnt Offerings” and
“Stargazers” exhibits
When: ShowingOct
5-28; artist talk at
3 p.m. Oct. 21. with
light refreshments -
Where: Gallery 114.
t100NWGfisan$t,
Portland
Horatio L a w ’s “B u rn t
Offerings” display
features the photographs
o f Syrian refugee
children, along with
their photos folded into
lightly burned origami
butterflies.